The Uruguay Round was a trade negotiation lasting from September 1986 to April 1994 which transformed the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade(GATT) into the World Trade Organization (WTO). It was launched in Punta del Este in Uruguay (hence the name), followed by negotiations in Montreal, Geneva, Brussels, Washington D.C., and Tokyo, with the 20 agreements finally being signed in Marrakesh - the Marrakesh Agreement.
See General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade for previous and subsequent rounds.
Groups such as Oxfam have criticized the Uruguay Round for paying insufficient attention to the special needs of developing countries. One aspect of this criticism is that figures very close to righ country industries -- such as former Cargill executive Dan Amstutz -- had a major role in the drafting of Uruguay Round language on agriculture and other matters. As with the WTO in general, NGOs such as Health Gap and Global Trade Watch also criticize what was negotiated in the Round on intellectual property and industrial tariffs as setting up too many constraints on policy-making and human needs.